Tag Archives: nsa

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a statistical transparency report on their mass surveillance operations during 2017. The transparency report is required under the 2015 Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet-collection and Online Monitoring Act (USA FREEDOM Act) and last years FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act. The USA FREEDOM Act was passed ... Read More »

A series of documents recently published by The Intercept shows that the NSA has been tracking Bitcoin users for years. The documents were provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. While many other federal agencies are paying private contractors, such as Chainalysis, to provide information on Bitcoin transactions and users, the US intelligence community has been running their own cryptocurrency surveillance ... Read More »

A top secret satellite listening post in Norway that has been, and continues to be, supported by the United States’ National Security Agency (NSA) is helping to conduct illegal mass surveillance programs. The Norwegian Intelligence Service constructed the secret satellite surveillance station on an old military base in 2000. The base is known by the codename VICTORY GARDEN, and it ... Read More »

A photograph showing an alleged leaked Army document revealing a joint project to track anonymous cryptocurrencies seems to have come from a somewhat unlikely place. The photograph reveals some interesting things, one of which is the revelation that the National Security Agency (NSA) is conducting a joint project with the US Army’s Cyber Protection Team (CPT) from the Cyber Protection ... Read More »

A pair of exploits used by the NSA, which had been leaked online earlier this year by the hacker group known as the Shadow Brokers, is now causing havoc by aiding a group that is using the exploits to install malware which runs Monero mining software on infected computers. Cybersecurity experts from F5 Networks have discovered an attacker who is ... Read More »

New NSA mass surveillance programs have come to light thanks to a joint NSA and United States Army virtual hard drive image left exposed on the internet. The new leaks have exposed an NSA program which collects the contents of the communications of American citizens and residents, including the contents of SMS text messages and emails. The virtual hard drive ... Read More »

An Uzbekistani man who immigrated to the United States in 2009 has become another victim of the United States’ warrantless surveillance programs. The man, whose name is Fazliddin Kurbanov, arrived in the United States as a refugee who had converted from Islam to Christianity. Kurbanov moved to Boise, Idaho and began taking classes to learn how to become a truck ... Read More »

Researchers from the cybersecurity company known as Positive Technologies have discovered a way to disable the embedded Management Engine (ME) controller chip of Intel processors. It is also known as a coprocessor. The ME chip allows for remote management of a computer and has long been considered a backdoor. In the past, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has called the ... Read More »

The Shadow Brokers first exited the stable with what seemed like overwhelming potential for disaster. They stole hacking tools from a group that claimed to have stolen them from the NSA. They tried to sell those twice-stolen tools. And then they failed and went underground. Then, in a strange turn of events, someone found them on the ZeroNet, selling the ... Read More »

A secret super computing project to crack encrypted data that is being run by New York University (NYU), IBM, and the Department of Defense was recently revealed to the public, but not intentionally. The project, known as WindsorGreen, was revealed when the software and hundreds of pages of documents detailing the project were stored on a backup hard drive that ... Read More »

Months ago, news broke about a group of hackers who called themselves The Shadow Brokers. They stole weaponized NSA cyberwarfare software from the Equation Group, a group that originally stole the software from the NSA. The Shadow Brokers made several attempts at selling the software but repeatedly failed. Motherboard reported that the group disappeared, for the most part. That is, ... Read More »

Harold T. Martin III was arrested in last August and was charged with keeping top secret materials from the NSA in his home and car. Now, federal prosecutors want to order continued detention for the Maryland man. According to court documents, FBI agents managed to recover about 50,000 gigabytes of material from Martin, which would be equivalent to 500 million ... Read More »

For years critics have claimed that the US’ Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is a pushover. It’s allegedly s reluctant to reject spying orders that it’s little more than a speed bump for the FBI and NSA. That reputation isn’t about to change anytime soon. Reuters possesses a memo obtained from the Justice Department showing that FISC didn’t reject any of ... Read More »

In a memorandum by District Judge John Gleeson regarding the case against Agron Hasbajrami, Gleeson admitted that the NSA program “PRISM” exists. Hasbajrami, an Albanian citizen and resident of Brooklyn, was arrested on September 6, 2011 and charged with three counts of attempting to provide material support to terrorists. He attempted to suppress the evidence obtained as a result of ... Read More »

In a recently published FAQ, the NSA outlines the switch for NSS (National Security Systems) from Suite B cryptography to the CNSA (Commercial National Security Algorithm Suite). The NSA describes the CNSA as a “suite of algorithms identified in CNSS Advisory Memorandum 02-15 for protecting NSS up to and including TOP SECRET classification. This suite of algorithms will be incorporated ... Read More »